A group of Tesla [TSLA:US] Model S and Model X owners has filed a class-action lawsuit against the electric vehicle (EV) maker in a district court in San Francisco, California, as reported by Reuters on May 12. The lawsuit alleges that Tesla’s automatic software updates have reduced the battery life of their electric vehicles. According to the Tesla owners, these software updates came ‘without warning’ and resulted in an at least 20% reduction in their cars’ driving range. Some Tesla owners have paid third parties USD500 to USD750 to reverse the software updates, while others had to buy new batteries at a cost of USD15,000.

Tesla’s software update issues have sparked controversy in recent months. Attorneys representing the US Tesla owners said Tesla sends automatic updates whenever their vehicles are connected to Wi-Fi. The lawyers invoked the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, arguing that impacted Tesla vehicles are “protected computers”and that automatic updates violate consumers’ rights under the law. Earlier in May, China’s market regulator ordered Tesla to “recall” 1.1 million cars to reduce the chance of accidents. The recall will be conducted in the form of online software update, which will restore the option of switching off regenerative braking and alert drivers when they press hard on the accelerator pedal. Regenerative braking is a controversial feature that could save energy from the process of slowing a car, but it has been associated with incidents of unintended pedal application. Tesla had previously disabled the option to switch off the technique on cars produced after 2020.  

Sources:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/tesla-owners-sue-over-impact-software-update-ev-batteries-2023-05-12/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12086171/Tesla-owners-sue-claiming-software-update-cut-range-20-forcing-buy-15k-new-batteries.html

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-owners-sue-claiming-software-114653620.html

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-recall-over-11-mln-foreign-china-made-cars-chinese-regulator-2023-05-12/

https://www.caixin.com/2023-05-12/102055085.html